ABSTRACT
One of the factors which contributed much to making the pressure for the democratisation of local government irresistible was the steady and increasing effect of the Elementary Education Act of 1870. In a largely philanthropic wave of determination to eradicate the evils of “national ignorance,” the Government had been allowed to pass legislation authorising the erection of elected School Boards whose members were subject to no property or rating qualification whatsoever, whose activities were confined within no statutory rating limit, and whose members were elected by all the ratepayers on equal terms and without the slightest Plural Suffrage. Schools despite all that Anglicanism and Conservatism could do in urging the needlessness of thus burdening themselves with what would certainly be a heavy School Rate when “sufficient” voluntary school accommodation existed or could be provided. One particularly important result of the School Board precedent concerned the government of London.
